The Sea's Revenge

PREVIOUSLY ON LOST we kinda bungle the whole uhhhh trial thing what with the attacking folks inside the courtroom as people are leaving.

Riaeki and Nalia head to find Akar to do some scrying. The scrying spell is successful. The dwarf in question appears to be outside the city. It appears the group of pirates left through the south gate, still under an illusion spell. Riaeki and Nalia also remember, with Akar’s prompting, that the illusion magic is likely from Delphina Greenwater. They then go to find a guard to tell them what they saw. The guard calls it in.

Meanwhie, Afa and Sharzad head to the beach. They hash out some of the events of the past (pretty tough) day, including how Afa was in a VERY precarious, harmful position. They then head to a tavern, where Afa does a pretty amazing performance :3 AND gets an ongoing gig out of it!

Nalia makes her way back home for some well deserved rest, while Riaeki heads for the temple of Tanith.

The next morning, Sharzad visits Nalia to talk about what happened at the court room. She asks Nalia why she cast fog cloud and Nalia admits she did so without thinking much, partially out of fear Larr Xa would get away somehow. Sharzad says they need to not do that in the future and plan better. Nalia takes a bit of offense, thinking Sharzad means to tell her what spells to learn. Sharzad assures her this isn’t the case. Mollified, Nalia shows poor Sharzad a bunch of spells in her spellbook and babbles on about magic for a while.

Next, Sharzad goes to see Riaeki at her apartment. The apartment is very bare of any personal effects. They have a difficult discussion, again about the events in the court room. They disagree in part on what went wrong, what was or wasn’t justified. Sharzad believes what happened was something the gang should encourage the gang to exercise more caution, and Riaeki feels they were justified in acting quickly. Both have a stake in their position. In the end, Sharzad says firmly she doesn’t believe what happened was worth it, and Riaeki says she does. Sharzad ultimately is looking toward what can be improved in the future regardless and tries to communicate this. The two part on somewhat uncomfortable terms as Sharzad heads off to meet with Belinda.

Sharzad and Afa head to see Belinda. The meeting is about as comfortable as you might expect!!!! Belinda is not feeling particularly generous toward the gang. She says that she cannot stop them from attending the execution as it is public knowledge, but would prefer if they didn’t. She does reluctantly offer a mode of communication in an emergency. Bellana also reminds Sharzad of Calafort’s unhappy history with mercenary companies.

So all around an extremely good day for Sharzad.

That night, Afa has a scary ass dream meeting with Callum again and he basically offers her a kind of soul selling deal?! He does something to her mandolin and tells her to contact him if she thinks about it further (NOTE: I’M SORRYTHIS IS VAGUE I THINK I MISSEDSOME OF THIS :( )

We start off having picked a fight with seven disguised pirates in a crowded courtroom.

Two of the pirates try to shove Riaeki over but she is strong and does not fall. One of the pirates runs into the crowd and the others try to assess the situation, and Jek Se draws her weapons.

Nalia casts fog cloud and the crowd starts to realize somethings up.

Afa casts hold person and get one of the rando pirate but misses the runaway. She runs after pirate trying to disappear into the crowd, Sharzad tossing her a pair of manacles.

Sharzad then shouts that there are pirates in the crowd and then manacles herself to Jek Se???? Then she stabs Jek Se. So does Riaeki.

Belinda Greyhawk takes stock of the situation, and yells for the guards to open the doors. Then she pulls a longbow out of invisibility but her shot goes wide.

The crowd then PANICS and bolts for the doors, but luckily they are opened now.

So its chaos now and Afa loses sight of the runaway and now is in danger from the stampede. Another pirate tries to run for it and they manage to down her.

Afa gets knocked down and stampeded but she manages to get up and to the nearest wall which she climbs with her nice gloves.

Nalia has cast haste on Riaeki so now she attacks very fast.

Belinda misses another shot and then tries to close the distance to melee. The crowd is still panicked but has moved in the direction of the exits so its not a blind panic.

Jak Se then grapples Sharzad and holds her scimitar to her throat. The other standing pirate also grabs a random captive.

Nalia shouts “Hey! Let go of my friend!” and Ray of Frosts Jek Se and she goes down! Sharzad goes down with her. Sharzad undoes her manacle and rushes the last pirate and manages to knock down the last pirate.

The super fast Riaeki manacles Jek Se, cast lay on hands on her, casts wrathful smite on her weapon and finishes the last pirate all in one turn. Its super cool.

Now the fight is over and Belinda is angry at us (again). She moves through the crowd helping people.

In the aftermath guards manacle the remaining the pirates and Sharzad looks around for people that need healing. Afa complains that people stepped on her. With their feet. We also see Reka standing up and bleeding. He comes over to talk to us and ask if we’re okay and its a little awkward.

Riaeki bluffs casting zone of truth with her shield and asks Jek Se if she killed Qeri. Jek Se refuses to answer questions even when Riaeki ups her game and threatens to cut off extremities.

Belinda comes over to demand a full report. She takes us to a private room and proceeds to yell at us for causing a panic in such a big public event. Riaeki says that Jek Se could have fought through the whole crowd and that it was important to catch her.

Belinda points out that if we weren’t so lucky many people could have died. She is not happy with us.

We all walk out into the courtyard and Afa spots some disguised figures, which she points out to the guards without bothering to tell the party first.

Riaeki and Nalia manage to get past the guards to go ask Akaar to scry for the pirate that got away while Sharzad and Afa sit behind a currant bush.

Last time on The Shea’s Revenge: We did stuff. Afa stole something from Lydia that Lydia stole from Sharzad. We trained the company. We talked to Nehaska about her hometown & negotiations for a deal between there and the darkwaters. Nalia tried to teach (poorly) and Riaeki taught defensive strategies. We filled out witness statements, and were informed that the trial would be tomorrow, and the execution would be several days after that. We arranged for our mercenary company to provide some additional security & went to prepare.

Riaeki & Sharzad agree to hang out for the night, Sharzad saying that she was ‘something she needs to finish up’. Afa heads over to the university library to do some learning. She meets with our dragonborn friend at the library to look up ‘Callum’. She finds a mention of Callum in a book about Fae. She borrows a book, and several others on the unseelie.

Riaeki & Sharzad go to Nehaska’s to ask about Tenk’s location, and in the process find Tenk! They go to buy some bulk goods, and then go off to find a Tinker to buy some gears. Tenk & Sharzad talk about Nehaska- letting her know about her Brother, etc. Tenk talk about how he met Nehaska: he was set to be sacrificed, and the two of them fought to a standstill- and became friends. They talk about what it means to be willing to be sacrificed, and the mathematics of having enough willing tributes. Sharzad decries the god as ‘a cruel spirit’, and Riaeki & Sharzad talk about what a spirit is. The conversation turns to Sports & the difference between Losing and Getting your Ass Beat. Eventually, they arrive at a Tinker’s shop- old, ramshackle. Riaeki hears cursewords, crashing, clanging around, and then the door opens. Standing there is a gnome, tall, dark grey skin, with small eyes and big pointed ears. He asks what we want and the conversation trails off to talking about body parts.

Sharzad asks Riaeki to negotiate on her behalf, and Riaeki casts detect thoughts so that she can know what prices to ask for. The gnome calls her weird, and Riaeki says that she’s a high elf, so maybe that’s why he’s discriminating. Damn. The gnome realizes that Sharzad is buying parts for a gun, and requests that he be able to inspect the gun. Riaeki negotiates that he can inspect it, but not take notes, and we get a discount! Sharzad shows off her guns, the gnome goes off to get the parts, and Tenk says “I think he likes you!” We… don’t believe that. We get the parts, & Sharzad asks to be told if he tries to build. They talk about spirits & guns, Riaeki threatens him for Sharzad, & he introduces himself: Kronthud Ironfoot. They go build a rifle together! Then they head off to sleep. Meanwhile, Afa is reading her book of fae stories. First, she finds a story where Callum helps someone get out of a deal. Then, Callum teaches someone how to hide their true intentions from the fae. He seems to fill the role of helping Fae trick people or helping people trick the Fae, as a trickster spirit, and is almost always helpful. He seems to be a staple figure in these stories. And these stories seem to be from the same region Afa is from- and the same region the goblin market was in.

They all go to sleep- and Afa dreams. Callum is there, with his Lute. He asks if Afa is ready to practice, and he seems quite normal. At one point, he teaches her a trick, and she says: “That’s very clever!”. She isn’t able to read his reaction.

We wake up the next morning, going to the trial & waiting in line for a while, before being admitted to the keep. Belinda Greyhawk meets us there, and directs Riaeki to go and speak with someone- we enter an arena-style room, big enough to hold a couple hundred people, and proceed through it to a small, nicely furnished room off to the side. Inside is a small, unassuming human man, slender with close cropped hair and spectacles. A scholar. He introduces himself as Wren- and we think he’s most likely Duke Wren Carpenter, the highest noble in the city. He says a joke about standing- he finds it difficult- then says he owes us a great debt for recovering Larr Xa & Nexxaya Myr. We say he doesn’t, really, and he acknowledges that, but says he likes to thank people. We mention the risks of a public execution, and he says that’s what he wanted to talk to us about- how we were going to help secure the execution. He says they’ll have 20 guards there- most of them around himself & around the stage itself. 5 guards will be in plain clothes, among the crowd. We’re… concerned.

We make plans to provide them with more information about the pirate crews, and tell Wren about the cult in the town. We make plans for how to use the mercenary crew, Sharzad makes a gaffe, and Wren agrees to hire some mercenaries (mages) to defend the harbor. We head out to see the trial.

Nexxaya & Larr Xa plead guilty, and we notice that a group has reacted poorly to this group pleading guilty. Afa looks back- and notices this group is covered in illusion magic. She tells Nalia- while Sharzad tells Riaeki she intends to go back there and speak to them. Larr Xa & Nexxaya admit guilt in the most assholish ways. The trial ends quickly and we go to confront them, with magic invisibility, Riaeki’s Pure Anger, and dimensional doors. Afa trips one of them, and Riaeki casts dispell magic on another- causing that person to be revealed as Jek Se.

today we are blessed….. with many cats…….. thy’re all so good…. we love them so

we’ve all agreed to help sharzad with the training , but first we’re going to talk to nehaska. there’s some hubbub about how we’re going to find her, as she left the city on a job last we checked. going to talk to caradoc would be AWKWARD, and the only other way to find her is to use the yleth scrying ball. which probably seems like a bad idea. eventually with many eyes emojis from sharzad, the gang heads to the bung and barrel, where nehaska was last seen.
*bean interlude. excellent licks. tia is in a paper bag.

the bung and barrel is empty but for an employee. riaeki asks her where nehaska is:
employee: why?
riaeki: well we met her brother, and we need to tell her that he you know, still likes her, despite her being rejected by her family—
nalia: we’re her friends!

this convinces the employee, apparently.

BEANPURRS

nehaska apparently only is here to sleep, and isn’t around much. we decide to leave her a note. leaving directions is a bit complicated, and we come up with a name for the forge that our guild is being built (the cleric’s hammer). also apparently we’ll be staying at the hungry unicorn late.

there’s a brief discussion of finances and how good everyone is at killing things, and undead in particular. "we could have a competition’ ’we’d need to get someone to raise them, and i don’t want to go all the way to the university.’

it’s apparently illegal to raise a soul, but not necessarily a body, so long as the person consented in life to the raising. there are organ donation cards, but like for your body. there was a famous legal case where someone asked to be murdered so they could be raised, which is a vibe.

cat break as rick demands to be let out and is rudely denied. GIVEHIMWHAT HE WANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sharzad gives a lovely training speech. like it’s a sharzad speech so it’s pretty rambling, but it’s inspirational. riaeki claps. riaeki is the only one who claps. sharzad corrects tani as he puts xan in a chokehold (‘put his head down’). afa attempts to pick lydia’s pocket. (there’s a quick aside as to whether lydia had successfully picked sharzad’s pocket. mostly she hadn’t, but also she stole a figurine of sharzad’s.) she steals the figurine, and a woven bracelet. riaeki attempts to teach jalal protection fighting, and is pretty good at it. nalia tries to teach some basic cantrips, but doesn’t teach very well. maybe singes someone a little. afa talks to lydia about having stolen from sharzad (lydia wants to steal one of sharzad’s guns). and about her bracelet (“it’s pretty” “if you’re into that”). they agree to an exchange: lydia will teach afa to be stealthy, and afa will teach lydia how to con people. this can only go well

when we’re about 2/3 of the way through training, nehaska shows up.

AS DOESRICK!!!!!!!!!!!!! HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

nehaska seems… charmed…. by the mercenary company and offers to give us her leftovers, which is vaguely rude. we tell her about having visited the city which is called altepetl. afa tells her about the plague, and rescuing the yuan-ti from zoumisa, and riaeki tells her that the gang met halsuul, whose name i’ve forgotten how to spell. riaeki and afa talk to her about her brother, that he’s still a cleric and still cares about her, and uses all his spell slots on other people. riaeki prods nehaska iinto trying to be of assistance with the whole ‘yuan-ti peace treaty’ thing.

sharzad gives a speech about keeping up with training when not adventuring, and riaeki, happy to help, punches her in the face. nehaska heals sharzad, which riaeki resents profoundly.

a runner from the city guard comes to get riaeki, telling her that belinda greyhawk would like her to come make a statement ‘at her earliest convenience’. riaeki decides that might as well be now. the other three decide to join her, and the group heads off.

belinda greyhawk is in her office, talking to the runner. she hands us paper to write our statements, that are fancy and legal, and gives us a detailed explanation of what to do and not to do in terms of filling them out.

afa provides the most detail, and afa and riaeki both write fairly feelingly of their statements. afa does not poke around in the desks , miraculously. sharzad does try to sell the guild to the random guards in the room. they are NOTSOLD.

belinda greyhawk gives a rundown of how the trial and execution will happen— riaeki is skeptical, and convinced that the crew of the edge of the world or yleth herself will somehow intervene . she and sharzad enlist the guild to help with the guard duties on execution day, and try to get the execution moved closer to the trial so that they have less time to plan. belinda greyhawk objects on humane grounds, but says she’ll ask the judge.

Nalia goes to talk with Akar about some of the items she got, as well as the freaky snake god. Akar is happy to give some insight about the items, and mildly concerned about the snake god. He suggests Nalia consider talking to a cleric about things she finds bothersome, and she thanks him. Then they do some knitting!

Riaeki goes to check on Larr Xa and Nexaya. A guard tells her that the two talked to each other from their separate cells quite a bit, and were eventually separated.

(Meanwhile, Afa gets some good fried potatoes.)

Sharzad has been busy training the mercenary company.

Back with Riaeki: A visit to Belinda Grayhawk yields more information on the Darkwaters and yuan-ti conflict. She also reminds Riaeki that she will need to give a full deposition.

LATERTHATNIGHT, the gang reunite with Sharzad…who HAS A DOGNOW! We love Sunny the Bulldog!!! Everyone starts catching up; in particular Sharzad starts grilling Riaeki about everything in the past few weeks and her general state of being. Riaeki gives Sharzad the grappling hook, though it turns out it’s not magic after all. Sharzad goes to change before they go to the Hungry Unicorn. She comes back in a beautiful dress that looks like the ocean :3

At the Hungry Unicorn they run into many of the members of the mercenary company, including a very drunk Lydia. The entire party has a good time and gets to relax for the first time in the pat few weeks! (Nalia also identifies a mystery item…BUT WHAT IS IT?!?!?!?!)

Next morning, Sharzad visits Nalia and asks if she would be interested in tutoring one of the mages in the mercenary company. She then goes to see Afa, and similarly asks for her help with the guild, with sneaking. She then returns home and asks for Riaeki’s help too, with healing.

We descend into the vaults through a stone column and then through empty air. The elevator ends up in a massive cavern that has been decorated and is full of STUFF ranging from mundane things like plows to boxes that contain silks and other expensive things.

Bellana identifies a torc that she recognizes from a family portrait, and it starts talking to her. It says it can tell she is a descendant of a previous owner and offers great power. Bellana realizes the thing is probably somewhat cursed and puts it back down.

Nalia finds a wizard’s spellbook bound in snakeskin with cool new spells and chooses that.

There is a very cool and pretty quill that makes people keep to their contracts. Both Afa and Bellana are interested in it but Bellana grabs it first. Afa tries to convince her to take something else, but when she fails tries to sleight of hand it away from her. When this fails, Bellana holds the box high over her head and and Afa scales her to try to grab the box and is once again thwarted by Bellana’s strength.

In the hubbub, Riaeki steals a grappling hook for Sharzad.

Afa picks a whistle that will tune instruments magically, an Riaeki picks a puzzle box with an ocean inside. Eagan chooses a goblin compass.

We arrive back above ground to a large gathering where they are breaking the news of all that went down in the city and laying the dead to rest. They lay the dead to rest by dumping the bodies into a big pit under the plaza that has a huge snake in it.

Bellana greviously insults the Yuan-Ti (again) and we are invited to leave now. Before we go, the priest lady warns Afa to be wary of people who come in pleasant dreams.

We leave the city and find the freed prisoners waiting for us in the swamp. There’s a gnome among them and Afa suggests she finds someone to give a piggyback ride and the gnome is scandalized.

On the way back Gideon complains and Bellana reprimands him. Afa then does an amazing imitation of Bellana complaining for everyone’s amusement.

On the trip back, Eagan starts insisting that he knows the right way to go, often suggesting things like cutting through dark forests instead of continuing on the road.

On the trip back, Afa steals the quill from Bellana late at night when she and Nalia are on watch, and Nalia tries to recruit Eagan to the Lightheart Company. Bellana notices the quill is missing the night before we finally return to Calafort. When we arrive at the gates Bellana gets some guards to search us under the guise of “safety measures,” but they don’t find the quill because Afa slipped it into the handy haversack.

The group arrives at the Darkwater townhouse and are shown inside. Lord and Lady Darkwater greet us. While reuniting with her parents Bellana tells Lord Darkwater about the theft but Lord Darkwater says he can’t search the people who brought his children back.

Last time: We get a meeting with the council of high priests. It goes okay but they still put us in a cell. One of them, Zhomisa, comes down to our cell- and Afa realizes that his amulet is suspicious. He interviews her, and when he reacts to something she didn’t say. we realize that he was using a ‘detect thoughts’ spell. Sensing betrayal, we attack. The combat is really cool, and we end with Zhomisa dead, and Ekoleihi is… pissed.

Bellana, still in a rage, tries to punch Ekoleihi. It… doesn’t work, because Riaeki blocks it, then asks if a dialogue Is actually going to happen between the two. Nalia casts Identify on the amulet, and discovers it can imbue something with a disease vector made of necromantic magic. It draws the lifeforce of those killed by it to the caster. Ekoleihi notices what was occurring, and Nalia asks if she knew what was happening. She says she doesn’t, and acknowledges if this is true, it would be an unparalleled crime.

She asks Nalia for details, and Nalia provides them. Bellana proposes a method of reaching a truce with the Yuan-TI. It’s… contentious, to say the least, but depends on her father not knowing that the plague has potentially been solved. We discuss this for a bit before Afa interrupts to point of how cool and good she is. (Very good and cool.)

The sning joins us and asks for an explanation, receiving the same as before, bringing Halsul. He inspects the amulet, and asks that we stay here in the city until the investigation is concluded, but with free reign of the place, telling Halsul to show us the sights, mentioning to our buddy (Nohahlu) who’s had a rough day that there’s a game today. Bellana’s intruiged and wants to go see, but asks for her brother released first.

We head to a large stadium surrounded by stone bleachers (I missed most of the details because of a cute cat but it’s very cool) and take some seats. It’s just hockey with basketball dribbling rules. The players are all buff and have snabs (snake abs). One of them has scars. The announcer comes out and announces the teams (it’s really cool).

Sports happen.
I’m sorry.

The non-temple win wins! Nice!

We decide to play fantasy sports. Gosh. Wow. Riaeki and Afa vs. Nalia and Bellana. Bellana and Nalia win! Through bellana’s endurance, Nalia’s intelligence, and Halsul’s charisma. Afa does a lot of monkeying around and Riaeki gets a really cool goal with the ring of the ram.

After we win, we go out for dinner again, and Riaeki actually remembers what this food is like! Cool! She tries to tell Nalia and Nalia is oblivious. After dinner we go to bed, but Riaeki collects Eagan and asks to go and cast dispel magic on some plague victims. It seems to work

Sleep! Gideon and Bellana have an early morning ‘glad you’re alive, what up with spirits’ convo. Bellana basically says Gideon being a good person is the reason all this happened and Gideon, understandably, is mad (in a very teenagerish way). Riaeki goes and checks on a patient she cast dispel magic on- and this patient is better! Riaeki doesn’t take credit, and asks them to go and tell the priests how to work against the plague.

We’re collected to take an audience with the high priests! They give us an option of magical items from their treasuries. They talk about their history of oppression from Bellana and Bellana takes offense. Riaeki casts zone of truth and Bellana immediately just says a bunch of unhelpful stuff. The snake priests take offense, of course, but mostly just want her to go away (like most people do). We head off to the storage unit for the magic stuff and Descend.

PREVIOUSLY, ON DUNGEONSANDADDITIONALLYDRAGONS: we investigated a city, and it turned out it was super creepy and weird and full of snakes. not unexpected really but still bad

there’s a spirited discussion pre game about what to do if an entire town spontaneously ignites due to air quality. people are not convinced to move, which seems irresponsible.

afa and nalia return and discuss what they found— the prisoners are heavily guarded, and it’s not likely that we could use the wells to snake around. nalia thinks that there might be a big ugly ritual circle in the middle of the city.

bellana seems willing to negotiate but only if the group has an escape plan. “running” suggests afa. “if you move both feet at once, that’s jumping”.

the group tries to help bellana come up with a plan to negotiate with the yuan-ti. her plan is to bring more clerics and food, which doesn’t seem… helpful. afa suggests they bring back university folk. “i think they’d mind being poked and prodded” says bellana. there’s a minor debate about whether divine magic can be classified similarly to arcane magic and therefore studied by scholars (it can).

bellana has to roll to sit down, and fails.

the group decides there’s no better option than to simply walk into the city and ask to talk to someone important., and head into the city bellana tries to shake her dress out and… somehow…. also fails at that.

eagan and nalia hear footsteps behind them, and a second later, people appear. bellana tries to step towards the people: there’s a brief tussle as afa tries to stop her, and the leader of the guards? possibly? levels her spear at bellana, who offers salutations, almost without insult.

the guard lady sends a runner to the high priest, and spears the party towards the city. riaeki somehow gets fewer dirty looks here, which makes her feel real cool. we pass an arena, a small temple, small homes, and generally deeper into the city, up to the foot of the temple of mayor shark. we start walking up the stairs— everyone handles it pretty well, other than riaeki, who does NOTLIKESTAIRS, and eagan, who is just lame or something. the view from the top of the temple, though, is gorgeous.

there are four people waiting for us in the temple, near a stone altar that seems like it was probably used for sacrifices. one of the people is a huge snake, one seems to be a half-elf/half-snake, one has a human body and a snake head, and one looks humanoid.

riaeki pushes bellana forward, and bellana greets the terrifying snake people with "you just attacked a fort of ours!’ the snake speaks, telepathically which is always a good sign. he greets us as ‘coatl osstili’. the humanoid shakes hands with bellana. her name is maitl imil. the snake body is ‘tzin ekoleihi’, and snake head is ‘tzin zhomisa’. the rest of them speak normally, so at least the only creepo is snakeman. the party goes on to introduce themselves, and complain about the stairs.

afa pushes bellana aside and attempts to negotiate for the prisoners— that perhaps they could bring scholars to attempt to find the magical origins of the plague. the party knows, it seems, about as much as the yuan-ti. afa suggest maybe they shouldn’t wear cursed amulets (zhomisa is indeed wearing a strange amber necklace with necromancy magic on it). no one seems to react to this, thank god.

bellana offers up darkwater aid: healers, researchers, guards and hunters…. afa interrupts her and suggests that the party investigate the source of the plague ourselves. riaeki explains that the party has offered themselves to the yuan-ti’s mercy, and that their desire for the safety of the prisoners means they’re at a negotiating disadvantage. the yuan-ti allow the party guest rites, guarded, but seem like they won’t immediately kill them. there’s a brief struggle as bellana refuses to be lead.

we’re taken downstairs into what seems really a lot like a jail. possibly because it is a jail. bellana immediately complains that it’s not, well, her rooms in calafort, and has a bucket of water and soap delivered to her. as she tries to throw it on him, afa takes it for herself. riaeki manages to pull bellana into the cell, and we lock ourselves in jail, like fucking dumbasses.

afa and nalia do shadowpuppets, which they’re REALLY good at. they tell the story of the moonrats, and eagan is enraptured. bellana hears a voice she knows from across the room: gideon. riaeki shouts back: yes, bellana is here. bellana tries to cover up their identities, but gideon has already given himself up. bellana punches a wall.

bellana begins rattling the door, desperate to get out, and declares she’s calling off the deal. the guard, nohahlu, eventually finds it unbearable, and cuts her with some kind of narcoleptic poision that knocks her out for a full twenty minutes. when she’s out, afa and riaeki attempt to reason with the guard— the party really is here to help— but he doesn’t seem convinced.

nalia has an inane conversation with eagan about his name to cover for afa and riaeki, who come up with a contingency plan to break out of the city should things go south. the codeword is ‘sharzad’. bellana gets more and more agitated and tries to find faults in the walls.

after a long while, zhomisa shows up, sending nohahlu away. before he tells us his decision, he wants to ask some questions. he quizzes afa on what she’s seen of the plague: afa worries that he’s asking because he’s somehow the cause: he’s sent the guard away and wearing a necromancy necklace. it seems like he’s reading her mind, and afa shouts in hers for him to stop. he shouts for a compliment of guards— and afa and riaeki poof outside to attack him.

nalia casts witch bolt, saying ‘zap’ as she does it. afa teleports outside the door. nalia ignites the door. bellana body slams down the door. riaeki turns and slams her ring into the door holding some of the prisoners. afa starts thinking of horrible things her girlfriend did to snakes and casts hold person. it doesn’t take :( . the guards show up, including nohahlu. eagen tries to cast a sacred flame, but fails. nalia gust of winds the guards back through the door, and riaeki throws a wall of water into the doorway. bellana threatens zhomisa very threateningly. zhomisa fills an aura with light, and eagen seems like he’s super chill now. bellana goes into a rage! and attacks his ass. afa attempts to convince nohahlu that zhomisa is causing the plague. he seems to be deliberating. the guards try to shoot through the wall of water, and do not. riaeki attacks zhomisa, and he drops his spell on eagan. snakebody lady shows up, bursting through the water wall, and casts a spell on riaeki—- she sees larr xa appear, and attack her. zhomisa tries to suggest nohahlu, who FUCKINBEASTS the save, get FUCKED you ASSHOLE. bellana goes for ekoleihi, letting the gust of wind fling her. afa yells at ekoleihi and blasts zhomisa. eagan tries to sacred flame zhomisa and fails. the guards try to run through the water wall and fail, and try to shoot through the water wall and succeed. nohahlu, in a bit of a crisis, misses. nalia fireballs the HELL out of zhomisa and MURDERSHIM. riaeki, realizing larr xa isn’t real, charges ekoleihi, who tries to choke bellana with her snake body. bellana activates her dancing sword and tries to escape. afa casts tasha’s hideous laughter, but ekoleihi shrugs it off. eagan FINALLY hits someone for two whole damage, and heals bellana. the guards try to shoot bellana and riaeki and graze riaeki. nohahlu just sits down and thinks about his choices. nalia tries to convince ekoleihi that zhomisa was causing the plague. the guards lower their bows.

The gang discuss further how to proceed. In the end they decide to send Afa in to gather some more info.

Afa casts Disguise Self to make her features look more yuan-ti. Once in the city, she heads for areas where there might be fewer people around. She meets with a full yuan-ti woman who seems likely to be very sick with the plague. She has necromantic magic in her fingertips, which points to a magical component to the plague, and sets out to do more exploring to learn more. She also hears rushing water deep down in a well, which is strange…

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are doing their own investigations on the perimeter of the city. They note a lot of the culture of the city, and are surprised how cosmopolitan it is.

Back inside, Afa continues her investigations. She enters a temple, and notices that there is necromantic magic inside as well. Afa then approaches one of the people inside, telling him she’s there to pray, and implying she has a relative with the plague. The acolyte shows her how to pray to the Night Serpent. He also says that Merrshaulk and his priests are looking for a way to cure the plague.

Afa makes her way back to the rest of the gang and recounts what she saw. They debate the possibility of using the wells to transport the prisoners. It is decided that Nalia and Afa will go back to investigate further.

In the wells, Afa finds that there is indeed a cave system deep beneath the city. They then head into the city to look into the necromantic magic. Nalia sees that it is a residual magic as if a huge amount of necromantic magic has been discharged in the area—probably a ritual site. In the temple of Merrshaulk, Afa observes some of the priests doing a WACK blood ritual and Nalia sees a woman using healing magic trying to save a plague victim to no effect. They decide to head back and tell the others what they saw.

Meanwhile, Riaeki and Bellana are testy with each other. It is revealed that Belanna has somewhat misrepresented herself which causes some arguing that leads into more planning for how to free the prisoners. Eagan suggests everyone wait for Afa and Nalia to return before moving the conversation forward.

We follow the tracks through the swamp. Its very treacherous footing and it is humid and sticky.
We trudge on, some doing better than others. We are very lucky to have Eagan since none of us can roll survival for shit. We are all very miserable.

As the day comes to an end, Riaeki catches sight of something moving slowly. She manages to see that its a humanoid figure sitting near the tree, possibly injured and goes to check it out. It is a young Yuan-Ti man with a large wound in his leg. She offers to help with the wound and mentions that they are looking for the people from the castle. He is defensive and not forthcoming for the information. Riaeki kind of threatens to kill him, but in a polite way, in order to get him to join and help us. He doesn’t want to die right now, so he agrees to come back to the rest of the group and Riaeki heals his leg.

Belana describes some of the missing people and the mystery man confirms that they are with the group. He helped heal the injured ones. He has the same holy symbol that Nehaska did. There’s more conversation and we find out his name is Tzin Halsul. Riaeki ties him up and gives the lead to Nalia. As we continue on, Riaeki casts detect thoughts to see how truthful he is.

Afa strikes up a conversation and learns more about Yuan-Ti theology, asks about cranberries, and discovers that he knows Nehaska. (They share parents but she’s not his sister or something.) We also learn that the name of the god that they both serve is Merrshaulk. He says of her “she’s an adult, but she’s still ahtle.”

We finally make camp on a solid bit of ground and keep watch. We find out that the reason he reacted so strongly to Riaeki’s talking to gods was that he had an ex-boyfriend who was and aasimar who left because of a divine vision.

In the course of the conversation, Riaeki invites Elu to talk to Eagan through Riaeki’s body and he took her up on the offer! (Apparently he just reached out and touched him and didn’t say anything). Eagan then wakes everybody up.

Halsul heals himself by filling his wound with magical blood.
Belana wants to charge off but Afa wants to eat breakfast. There is much bickering as we set off with Halsul takes the lead.
We discuss possibly flying in, or using a smoke cloud as cover. There’s a patrol but luckily we duck it.

Next we have a stop and a conversation about why they need the sacrifices in the first place. Apparently there is a plague in the Yuan-Ti city, a rotting plague that causes people to hallucinate and wreak havoc with unnatural strength. We discuss if solving the plague must solve the hostage issue.

Halsul says he won’t report the incident until after they escape and we decide to let him go before we solidly decide on a plan.

Last time: the group travelled towards Kineshi swamp. Nalia and Eagan spoke of the gods and the concept of inherent goodness. Afa and Riaeki spoke about visiting Afa’s family. Bellana complained. They encountered an abandoned town, inhabited by three hags, which the party miraculously avoided. Bellana was chastised for walking directly into danger, then the party proceeded down the road, and was attacked by bandits. Nice. Through some spell use and threats we managed to avoid fighting them, and totally nothing happened involving a spell being cast on Bellana and Bellana being pissed about that. Nothing at all.

We proceed further and further into the swamp, spending the night with Bellana glaring constantly at Riaeki. The party sets out the next morning, starting to finally arrive in the swamp proper, with muddy road and wispy fog through the morning— until we finally come up to the roads end, where the road has been washed away by the swamp. Wide, tall trees rise up in every direction, and one is lying broken in the middle of the road.

We look down into the swamp, and snark at each other about spirits in trees. We all aggressively don’t want to go in first (and bellana is the worst about it). Eventually, at Eagan’s insistance, Afa goes first, and we all follow. Riaeki lashes a makeshift raft she found to her horse. We make our way decently far in- when Nalia notices a set of mushrooms that move, and then open, revealing a huge eye. Rising out the swamp is a gigantic poisonous tentacle frog, which is one of the worst things I’ve had to type.

Combat rundown:
→ Soraya and Eagan open strong, with burst of sacred flame and good arrow.
→ Nalia throws a fireball. It’s not very effective, but we’re still proud of her.
→ The Froghemoth attacks Afa and Bellana, grappling them. Then it swallows Soraya. Fuck.
→ Afa throws some good good eldritch bolts.
→ Nahwea tries to charge, but fails. Riaeki Attac, but also Protec, using a Turn. It doesn’t work, but it could have, which is good.
→ Bellana gets ungrappled, then bravely runs away.
→ Eagan is pissed, and throws scorching rays at the frog. ‘Let her go, you slimy motherfucker!’ Soraya tries to attack from inside. It’s… bad content.
→ Nalia also scorches the rays at the frog. It, again, is not very effective. Love that fire.
→ Nahwea does a cool kick. It’s sweet. Then the froghemoth destroys her and grapples Riaeki. Much less sweet. Then it swallows Riaeki. It… does that. It does that.
→ Afa eldritch blasts it. We love her but it’s not the Most Damage That’s Ever Been Done.
→ Riaeki hits it incredibly very hard and… lets Riaeki and Soraya go. Nice!
→ Eagan does MASSIVEHEALING. Soraya moves away from the frog and shoots an arrow. It hits!
→ Nalia throws a chromatic orb and I’m Love Her. The acid eats through the skin of the creature.
→ The froghemoth fails to attack literally anyone this round, so basically, we’re the best.
→ Afa does the warlock spell, and she does it good.
→ Riaeki slices the creature’s tongue off with a branding smite, following through on the motion to stab the frog through the jaw and the head, releasing a blast of radiant energy to turn it into a frog kebab.

We proceed to take lunch in the middle of the swamp because fuck it.

Riaeki asks Bellana for horse usership permission, and Bellana (very reluntanctly) agrees to let her use Orchid, her hunting horse. Bellana goes back to cleaning daisy when the Mosquitoes appear.

God damn it.

→ Bellana & Riaeki are attacked by Mosquites. It uh, it really gosh dang hurts.
→ Eagan fails to sacred flame. Soraya shoots one of the mosquites on Bellana.
→ Nalia casts gust of wind, blowing the mosquitos back, off of Bellana and Riaeki.
→ Afa plays her garklin so good that the mosquitos explode.

God damn.

Bellana wants out, so we leave. After a half a days journey, we finally arrive at the keep. Bellana lies about knowing Dellahn. Then, we notice the keep is empty. Unmanned. And the gates of the keep are splintered. Inside lies Dellahn and many others- dead, maybe a couple days. Bellana rides through the keep looking for survivors- finding none, but also no bodies. At least 30, maybe 35 people are missing.

Bellana begins moving her bags into her room, while everyone else tries to figure things out. She asks everyone to help her move her bags, then when that’s done, shuts herself in the room. Eagan and Soraya discuss why Bellana would be acting so odd, which makes Nalia thinking face emoji. Finally, Bellana emerges, in a (very slightly) more padded outfit which might stop, I don’t know, a single drop of acid, carrying a sword and shield in a manner that indicates that she doesn’t know how to use them, and goes to the gates. Riaeki stops her, and Bellana activates the shield, causing a ghostly figure to emerge and highlight the tracks all around. She explains that she wants to go after the people in the castle and find them so as to defend her families reputation. Everyone believes that? For some reason? Though then again, she is /awful/. The party decides to head deeper into the swamp to try to locate the survivors.

The gang is still traveling, and Bellana is still The Worst.mp3. They pass through some villages and whatnot but nothing of particular note happens until later in the afternoon. It has been raining and is generally miserable, so they don’t notice until they’re right at the village that…there are no people around. There is a slight scent of smoke on the air. Bellana notes that there is one home with smoke from the chimney, and insists on seeing if there’s someone there who has provisions for them. As the gang begrudgingly follows her, Nalia notices that the village seems to have been suddenly abandoned. However, the hut with smoke from the chimney is…pristine. Bellana enters and the rest follow. Inside there are three old women, who instruct the party to sit. Bellana starts telling them all kinds of info, smh.

Nalia realizes this is a coven of hags. In fact, one of them says so when Bellana asks if they’re orcs. They also give her some TEA which Bellana drinks. Nalia decides it’s time to go and starts to drag Bellana out, and Riaeki joins in. But in the process of this, Afa (who has been hiding behind Bellana) is exposed, and one of the hags recognizes her as fae marked, and figure out that she is associated with the Unseelie.

The hags want to ask Bellana questions. Bellana at last starts to demur but the hag puts a clawed hand on her shoulder, and won’t let her pull away. Afa says that if the hag hurts Bellana, she’s going to be forced to break her contract—or enforce it. This finally makes the hag release her and the gang get the heck out of there.

The gang hassle Bellana for a while but it mostly doesn’t seem to make an impression, and they set off again.

When evening sets in, they make camp. Eagan talks with Nalia about fire, the gods, and why people go to religion. Nalia is very awkward. Riaeki talks to Afa about going back to Afa’s hometown when this assignment is over. Suraya talks with Belanna who is very Herself.

The next morning as they set out, a few of the party hear what sounds like a scream being muffled. They realize Eagan is missing. Riaeki and Afa go to check it out, while Nalia stays with Bellana. It turns out to be bandits! When they demand money, Riaeki says they don’t have any, they’re guarding a noble with all the money. While some of the bandits go to ambush the others, the bandit leader agrees to hand over Eagan.

A BUNCH of BONKERS stuff starts to happen. Nalia intimidates the bandits by playing along with the idea she’s a demon. Afa casts fear on a bunch of bandits who RUNAWAY! Bellana tries to ride off but gets stopped by Riaeki. The gang collectively freak out/confuse the bandits to get them to just..leave?

previously on…………….. survivor
shopping and getting people arrested and sharzad is leaving us (FOREVER) (no) (but it’s still sad)

afa comes home to find the green finches have gone off on a tour, though the innkeep says that they will be back eventually. she goes to bed, and dreams lessons with callum. there’s a difference, though— normally they’re in an idyllic meadow, but afa returns this time to the campsite where we met callum. “interesting venue tonight,” says afa. “it’s familiar,” says callum ominously . he’s heard on the grapevine about how AMAZINGANDPOWERFUL afa allows that we’ve been dealing with gods, to which callum is surprised. afa tells callum a not insignificant amount of information about yleth, although not her name, including that shes’ dead and has been removed from history. callum says that he wouldn’t have thought the queen would care… yet, and says that she should check on her fey friends, and what they’re saying about her. some might be ‘envious of her position’. he teaches her a new etude, and that’s all of that. SUSPICIOUS

the group convenes in the morning to talk to nehaska at the bung and barrel, and contractors, in that order. the bung and barrel is in a nicer part of town, with a huge wine rack at the back, very nicely made. also at the back is tenk. sharzad rushes over and nearly offers nehaska a share in the venture, before afa pulls her back. tenk wishes he could help, but was taken from kineshi swamp very young, and waves nehaska over when she comes down. nehaska retrieves breakfast and we sit around the table. riaeki tells her that we’re looking for information on the swamp. nehaska wonders who could be important but also need escort to kineshi, but she lived there and remembers who owned property nearby. she asks what we know about it— it’s big. and. blue. (I KNEW IT)

the road will have bandits, she guarantees us. you can’t farm the land, or hunt really, so the people take to banditry to support themselves. the lizard people are likely to attack, less so the yuan ti (‘colonizers’ mentions tenk helpfully), but the yuan ti are zealots, obsessed with poison and into blood sacrifice. (‘i understand that,’ says sharzad.) the yuan ti can’t be bribed— they are looking for glory, a suitable sacrifice, or both in one. if we get captured, we should know that no one is coming, because it’s unlikely they’d ever find us. she also reminds us that lizardfolk consume the dead fallen in battle (tenk takes offense at her description of this, protesting that it’s a cultural difference). sharzad tries to convince her to join the party for this job, but she doesn’t want to return to the swamp. riaeki asks if she has any details about the area, and she goes off to get paper to ‘write us up a guide’.

‘she must like you,’ says tenk, ’that’s the most she’s talked about that place in a long while.’ she definitely likes afa. he says that the two of them are about to go out on a job for caradoc, and sharzad offers up the new formed guild for any future ventures. she also mentions that the starting funds were gathered illegally, and nalia adds that the man who donated the money got eaten by his own demon. luckily, nehaska shows up before this conversation gets more out of hand, and makes some notes. she notes inns to stay at, an abandoned city that’s probably overrun with bandits, and roads that might be helpful. afa thanks her, and we leave them to their breakfast. as we leave, sharzad lets tenk know that she has some forging ideas she might like to work on while she’s in the city, and gives him her address— he knows it, and tells her that it’s nice to have family in the city.

we head off to attempt to hire construction people to build our guildhall. none of us know that much about construction, but afa and sharzad have a vague idea of what the price should be. a discussion is had about where to find skilled laborers (the carpenter’s guild), unskilled laborers (the docks) and materials (who knows). laborers are hired, though the guild members can make some coin as our unskilled labor, so we don’t have to search them out. this takes most of the day, and late in the afternoon, we seek out reka.

pentek is on the stoop, playing with an adorable cat— he’s grown a bit (pentek, not the cat). it seems like a street cat, but he’s pretty insistent on keeping it. sharzad healing word’s the cat, who curls up on pentek’s lap. as we go in, afa hangs back, and assures pentek that if reka won’t let him keep the cat, he can keep it outside and feed it scraps.

as the party enters reka’s study, riaeki notices that he’s reading a lurid romance novel, which is amazing. she tells him that this is good blackmail to convince him to keep the cat. the party asks after the many ruffians they’ve sent reka’s way: xan and lydia are in calafort, and rain appears on her way. lydia has already gotten herself into trouble with cassian, one of the refugees, and xan is refusing to tell anyone his name, but they haven’t caused too much havoc.

the party tells him where they are going to put their guild, and mention that it’s going to have a tavern. this sparks a discussion about tavern names, and whether it would be unappetizing to name our guild tavern after the moon rats, or indeed hire the moon rats to be waiters and chefs. this seems like a bad idea, but we put a pin in it until we have a guild. sharzad then asks about the book reka was reading, and is informed as to the ways that books can be about sex. it’s at this point thankfully that pentek walks in with the cat, and the party leaves them to that.

when afa, nalia, and riaeki return to their rooms, there’s a notice from belinda greyhawk that the job’s gonna start the next day. riaeki heads to sharzad’s to give her the funds from the handy haversack, and also…….. ask her to kill larr xa and nexxaya, should they escape from prison. sharzad pretty categorically refuses, and riaeki regrets this immediately and they spend a very awkward afternoon trying to forget that conversation happened.

the next morning, the party heads to meet belinda greyhawk and their new charge. belinda has a large dog friend with her, who is tragically not coming with us. she takes us to the east gate as sharzad says her farewells: first to nalia, who promises not to set anything important on fire, then to afa, who promises not to sign any contracts and seems VERY convincing about it, then to riaeki, who sharzad hopes will not test the limits of rashul’s power by, um, dying. riaeki kisses her goodbye, and she leaves. belinda greyhawk dramatically has no opinion about this.

we’re taken to the east gate, where bellana is waiting for us. she basically looks like kelly clarkson, and that’s in the notes so it’s canon now. nalia introduces herself as ‘afa and riaeki’s friend’, afa says hi, and riaeki asks if bellana really threw someone threw a window (yes). belinda mentions that this was into a piano, and afa takes GREAT offense. it doesn’t seem to matter to bellana— the darkwaters can just buy a new piano— but afa takes great care to mention that if anything happens to her mandolin, bad things will happen to bellana. bellana does not seem very convinced, and is pretty condescending. belinda, weirdly, defends the party— they apprehended a cannibal and magically beat the crap out of a merchant— but bellana doesn’t seem impressed by that either. she’s making a fantastic first impression.

riaeki turns to the two guardspeople coming with us. one, eagan, is a cleric of elu and seemingly a full half-elf, the other, suraya, is of indeterminate origin and wielding a bow. it’s like sharzad has been split into two slightly less competent people, and it’s creepy.

we set off through the east gate! bellana complaining the entire way, and purposefully trying to separate herself from the party. afa hitches a ride with eagan, as there aren’t any horses her size, and tells him that she could take care of bellana should she try to get away. eagan seems relieved by this.

(Afa goes to talk to Larr Xa and tell him that the Queen rejected his contract)

On the sixth day, the boat approaches Calafort. We tie up the boat and we are greeted by Reka’s assistant Brynda. She is rather shocked at our cargo of prisoners (again) and heads of to send a message to Belinda Greyhawk.

Afa and Sharzad debate being liked vs. being feared.

Belinda arrives and takes the prisoners. She is Very Disapproving of Larr Xa’s missing extremities and tells us to reconsider our methods.
Belinda tells us that she may have a job for us. Riaeki doesn’t understand the legal system and is confused that they are not going to be charged immediately. Belinda explains and Riaeki is worried that the time a trial will take will give them time to escape. Belinda continues to explain the justice system to a confused Riaeki.

Belinda goes on to tell us that she wants to hire us to escort a friend of the family’s daughter to the Kineshi Swamp. This family we will be working for is the Darkwaters.
We all roll absolutely amazing on our history (3 nat20s and one 18 WHAT) so we get a nice infodump on the Darkwaters.
-they are an incredibly wealthy family that deals in money management. Banking, insurance, etc.
-they have more high-elf blood than some other noble families and as a result got kinda a shitty plot of land when they were enobled.
-they have the Kineshi swamp, which is very dangerous in large part due to the lizardfolk and the yuan-ti that preform horrible sacrifices in the heart of the swamp.
-The heads of the household are Lasalle and Jubal Scolt.
-most of their children are accomplished and well-behaved, except for one, Bellana.
-A local bard wrote a song about her throwing someone through a tavern window.
-The Darkwaters tend to use their swamp castle for punishment rather than retreat.

We continue to discuss the job. Belinda says that Bellana might not be happy about having to go and hasn’t been informed of her journey.

Sharzad says that she needs to stay behind in Calafort to work on building the mercenary company.

We arrive at the jail. It is an extremely solid building built into the hill. The door are covered in abjuration magic. They put Larr Xa and Nexxaya into the cells, and the locking of the doors includes cells. Belinda assures us that magic inside the cells is limited and it is all very secure.

She tells us we will be in contact with us when it is time to leave for our next job. She gives us the writ to redeem for the bounty, which we go to immediately collect. We get the money from a very nice tiefling with a broken horn and then head out.

We discuss where to buy the land for the guild hall and then split up. Sharzad goes to sell Nexxaya’s garments to a tailor and get things made for herself. The woman tries to convince Sharzad that it would be cheaper to have Nexxaya’s garments tailored to her, but Sharzad says she would rather sell the garments and have new stuff made from scratch. When she places her order for a dress and wants it soon, she gets a stern lecture on how long dresses take to make from scratch. Sharzad orders a dress and some professional clothes.

Riaeki goes to try to find Nekhasa. She starts by going to Caradoc’s and is told that he is in a meeting. An older elf who looks similar to Caradoc storms out and then Riaeki is let in. Caradoc says he’s fine, but Caradoc is not fine. Riaeki asks about Nekhasa and he tells her where she’s staying. Riaeki turns to go and then says that is Caradoc needs to talk he can talk to her. He says that things have been extra tough between him and his father since the whole nebulous Angharad deal. Riaeki says she still feels responsible for that. They talk about that and also some emotional stuff that i forgot to take notes while it happened, but Riaeki spent 5-lay-on-hands points while touching his face.

Afa grabs some food and goes to hang out at Bredan’s fish stall and they trade stories of their adventures.

Nalia goes to give a present to Akaar. When she arrives he’s in the middle of making his weekly stew. Nalia helps even though she is not very good at chopping vegetables. Nalia updates Akaar on all that has happened and tells him about the Yleth orb. She gives the brooch to Akaar and he is very touched even wiping away a tear! And he says that he always enjoys his conversations with her and then they chop some more vegetables.

The gang reconvenes and looks at the listings for properties in Oldmarket. Most of them are managed by the Sailors Guild and we need to talk to someone named Dolph. We go and talk to Dolph and it is awful and when Afa gets the impression that they wouldn’t then be allowed to go to the feywild, she decides its time to leave.
Next we see that the temple of Rashul owns land and we go to talk to them. We secure a plot of land and now we have land to build the guild!

BUTACTUALLY we are extremely leaving the city on account of all the pirates and mafia we just aggressed. Sharzad and Riaeki find a ship to take them back to Calafort, captained by one “Torgild Ventura”. They pick up Afa and Nalia where they’re waiting in the bay with Larr Xa and Nexaya. The latter two are confined to the Very Small Room. Afa casts Magic Mouth on the door as an alarm. Riaeki helps Torgild with manning the ship, Afa takes a nap, and Nalia studies some of the books they took from Larr Xa. Sharzad asks Riaeki about Boat Things but they both get kinda confused about it because they are cute nerds.

The route back to Calafort takes about six days.

-identify sharzad’s items
Sharzad asks Nalia to identify her new items. The breastplate is imbued with the power of Yleth and the gloves are for climbing. Sharzad keeps the breastplate and gives the gloves to Afa, who is very happy with them. Next, Nalia identifies the orb. It has divination magic as expected, but something about it is different— it seems to be connected the items and is maybe able to find the missing ones.

Nalia then uses legend lore on the amulet. It glows softly with a blue light, and then Nalia hears the following: “Many years ago this land was mine. I was the ruler, the sovereign, and I earned my place. But my siblings were jealous. And they sent someone to cast me down from my throne. But I got my revenge. I broke the key into several parts, and I hid them where they would never be found. So I am dead, but my siblings, well…They have a death of another kind. Confinement. And no one even remembers.”

Nalia tells the gang what she heard, and they decide to rest before trying to use the orb to find the final items. During this time, Riaeki goes to listen to Larr Xa and Nexaya. They discuss the possibility of Nexaya surviving the execution. It becomes clear that Riaeki is listening and she joins the conversation. She asks Larr Xa to confess, which Nexaya thinks is ludicrous. They discuss Nexaya’s patronage to a god of undeath and Larr Xa’s unpayable debt.

The next morning Afa and Sharzad do some stunts and have a good time.

Afa asks her patron about the stuff going on with the gods, and if she should be concerned about it or not. The fey queen is in fact impressed to know about this and thanks Afa for the information. Afa is understandably pumped about this and breaks out her mandolin and plays a dang tune.

The gang stop at a FARMER’S MARKET and buy some fish. They have a conversation about theatre and mercenaries and prostitution with the fishmonger lady. Riaeki and Sharzad discover the joys of salmon. Meanwhile, Nalia goes to buy a brooch for Akar.

Afa has a conversation with Larr Xa. In the course of conversation, he says he would do anything—make any promise—to let Nexaya go free. Afa consults with the queen of air and darkness about this. The queen says she will get back to Afa about it….cliffhanger music

Last Week: We get into mortal combat with Larr Xa and Nexxaya. Well, not mortal exactly. Dire? Anyways. Through clever use of hold person, grappling, handcuffs, and Gun, we apprehend them, and begin to quiz them about our old friend Ylethaen, discovering an awful conspiracy of thousands. We decide that we need to search the Edge of the World for more information; Afa, Nalia, and Sharzad go to the Edge of the World to do a heist, while Riaeki stays behind to watch after Larr Xa and ends up doing some torture. Awesome. Wow. We visit Ratha to talk to her about her future in the city and the level of difficulty of the heist (difficulty: very hard. our fucks? zero.) We proceed to the bay, sneak very badly through the docks, and jump off of the cliff, just like, a lot.

We swim towards the boat. It’s a fucking comedy of failures. Afa hits barnacles then runs away. Sharzad climbs the boat while invisible and forgot to wrap her guns right. Nalia, as always, is the fucking MVP, looking like a mermaid witch doing a cthulhu chant, it’s great.

Sharzad finds fine clothes, lingerie a pair of magical gloves (?), and a stash of coins and jewels. Nalia finds books on various magic, Larr Xa’s journal, and a small, slim volume that’s not in Larr Xa’s handwriting. It’s a weird Elvish- maybe Nexxaya’s language. Afa sees a slight glow behind a glow in the wall. She opens it- it’s a shimmering glass orb, a crystal orb, sitting on a dark metal stand. It’s fairly small, small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand. She takes it. Nalia literally factually says “Mamma Mia.” Finally, Sharzad finds the breastplate of Nexxaya, and puts it in her bag.

Once we’ve looted the room, we discuss what to do next. Sharzad says not to look in the brig- which immediately reminds Afa to look in the brig. Afa points out prisoners who wouldn’t be able to escape the fire might be there, so Sharzad says she’ll go by herself. She sneaks over- the room is full of symbols of Rashul. Lightning bolts, scratched into the walls, with anything available- even fingernails. Sharzad, rattled, checks the room as quickly as she can, and hurries back. Sharzad tells everyone it was nothing- but Afa realizes it was a lie.

Nalia takes the logs and Nexxaya’s book. Sharzad looks over the maps and find the most valuable- a map to their home base, a map marking spots along the coast of marin and artakshad, a map of the river to Mistfall, and a sketchy map of the river delta of Kineshi Swamp. Sharzad puts those and two more miscellaneous maps. Afa gets four books- two arcane, two historical. Sharzad puts four more miscellaneous maps among them. We build a pyre in the center the room, then move to the window to prepare to escape.

We fly away- behind us, the ship explodes, the gunfire being set off by the fire. We fly to the university, and return home. Everyone realizes what happened to Larr Xa- Sharzad is horrified. We discuss an escape route- when someone knocks on the door to find Larr Xa. It’s Raine. Riaeki grabs her and brings her inside- she’s surprised, but registers the… dire nature of her situation. Riaeki explains- we’re mercenaries, we have a contract on him. She says she understands, and Riaeki requests she not tell anybody what we’ve done. She asks, ‘Do you still serve him?’ ‘Yeah.’ We invite her to join us in calafort, and ask larr xa if he would betray her. He says he won’t, and we believe him. We invite her to join- she’s proud, and doesn’t want to take our money without having done work, but she’s interested in joining us. We let her leave, then prepare our escape.

Riaeki and Sharzad go to find a boat together, leaving Nalia and Afa to figure out how to the get them to the boat. Nice. Afa/Aileen is very smart. Afa and Nalia decide on plan- flying laterally and estimating the distance. Stormlord above. They pull themselves up to the window. Afa: ‘Are you ready?’ Nalia… thinks she is. Afa is sure it’ll be fine. They jump… Nalia’s fine. But Afa can’t properly keep ahold of Nexxaya. She has to let go- but she pulls a sick stunt to come back around and pick up the body.

Riaeki and Sharzad discuss the room on the boat, the nature of revenge, what happens to Larr Xa, and more. They have a lot in common on that front.

our initiative rolls suck. luckily theirs mostly also suck. we all suck. this is a suckfest.

sharzad shoots a guiding bolt, which streaks past nexxaya. riaeki casts aura of vitality on herself. nalia casts a firebolt at larr xa: it hits him in the shoulder, and he shouts into the deafening wards of the room eerily. then sharzad rushes nexxaya, and grapples her— then pulls out a gun on larr xa, and… misfires.

now it’s nexxaya’s go, and she inflicts wounds on sharzad. riaeki heals sharzad, and tries to knock larr xa prone, but his strength far outclasses hers. afa casts hold person, and BOTH OF THEMFREEZE IN PLACE. nalia sends scorching rays at larr xa’s head. he breaks the hold person, and grabs his greatsword. “well… hello.”

sharzad binds nexxaya’s arms, gags her, and leaps over the bed. larr xa strikes out at her, but between sharzad’s ring of jumping and riaeki’s shield in the way, misses dramatically. sharzad uses the distance to fix her gun. nexxaya struggles against her bonds— she resists the magical hold, but can’t break free of the manacles. riaeki turns on nexxaya and hits her twice, once with divine power. afa casts phantasmal force on larr xa— he sees nexxaya turn on him, suddenly, and attack him. nalia runs right into the fray and whaps nexxaya with her staff, tasering her while she’s down.

larr xa tries to figure out what the hell’s going on with nexxaya, but remains befuddled. sharzad pumps larr xa full of lead. nexxaya, full up with rage, spits out her gag. and heals larr xa. riaeki ties her to the bed, re-gagging her. afa’s illusion of nexxaya attacks larr xa, and she blasts him twice. nalia sends a scorching ray at him and literally smokes him. larr xa gathers himself a bit, swinging at riaeki. sharzad shoots him, and he spits blood, keeling over, unconscious. nexxaya wails through her gag as sharzad spares him from dying. the party ties him up, and riaeki brings him back to consciousness as she casts zone of truth.

with detect thoughts up, riaeki interrogates the two: larr xa insists that the mutiny had nothing to do with yleth, and that he found nexxaya on the next ship after the mutiny occured. in his thoughts, riaeki sees a deep admiration for her as she strides toward him, dressed in strange clothes. nexxaya doesn’t know who tiatha is, but insists that her cause is righteous— they’re trying to raise a dead goddess, killed unjustly. and it’s taken a while— nexxaya remembers dying and being brought back, multiple times. in her mind, riaeki senses what death was like for her: a grey nothing. riaeki asks why larr xa didn’t tell her about the mutiny— that she would have agreed that it was necessary, if he had.

afa asks why nexxaya is interested in the yleth-y artifacts, and riaeki sees more in nexxaya’s mind: a book, bound in metal, a crystal globe, and a sliver of the dark metal suspended over a pit. nexxaya seems particularly interested in the latter, and there’s a strong sense of objective, much the same as in larr xa’s mind. riaeki asks about other members of the cult— she’s thrown out of nexxaya’s mind before she can get any faces, but nexxaya mentions meeting someone who used to be trapped in a tree.

god i’m forgetting stuff lemme know if i forgot important things and i’ll edit it. at some point riaeki cuts off larr xa’s hand to knock him out. sharzad tries to beat nexxaya into submission, but realizing it would take a long time to do so (and be extremely violent and awful), just shoots her in the shoulder and magically spares her.

a long debate is had about what to do with the two of them. at first, the party considers just jumping out the window and trying to get to a boat from there, but the fact that none of us would be able to crew it is a pretty big dissuader. sharzad convinces riaeki that it would be better to take the two of them back to calafort and have them tried and executed than simply kill them here, and riaeki acquiesces. hiring a ship or a caravan seems like the best option, but the party doesn’t want to leave without any information that might be on the edge of the world. a plan is hatched involving flying in in the dead of night and burning the ship down. riaeki mentions that she’d probably be recognized on the edge of the world, and hangs back, first telling the gang the basic layout of the ship (and that they probably shouldn’t go down to the brig). afa, nalia, and sharzad go first to inform ratha that the group is leaving mistfall, and that the party’s parting gift against the family is going to be burning down a ship in their incredibly well protected and guarded bay. this is seeming like a better and better idea by the minute.

after the other three leave, riaeki wakes up larr xa. he looks down at his wrist— “that’s for midor’rian,” riaeki tells him. “who do you think the other three are for?” larr xa tells her he believes in her creativity. he asks if she believes in what rashul’s doing— that he’s waging war against death itself, that all beings have an immortal soul, and now that soul goes nowhere when the body ceases existence. the grey nothing that riaeki sensed in nexxaya’s mind. riaeki doesn’t have much to say to that— it’s not for her to question the mission she’s been given. she tries a lighter topic— she found out her name, and xa can stop calling her ‘stormdaughter’. she refuses to tell it to him. he asks if she found any family, and she responds that those people would be blood relations— family was what she had before he killed all of them. he says that she seems to have found a new family. if he so much as touches any of them, she says, she will find much more creative ways not to kill him. larr xa wonders if her cruelty was innate or taught to her by the pirates. when riaeki points out the irony of him being the one to say this, he says defensively that he included himself.

i am sure i’ll remember the rest of this conversation at some point when i’m less full of adrenaline but it ends with riaeki cutting off his foot. she wakes him back up, heals him, and declares “that one was for tai”.

nalia, sharzad and afa make an insane plan to get onto the edge of the world— they’re going to jump off the cliff above it and cast featherfall to splash down gently. they manage, barely, to outmaneuver the guard over the bay, and jump off the 1000 foot cliff into the nothing below. sharzad barely catches hold of afa’s hand as they fall into nothing, shaking her just in time for afa to cast the spell. they splash into the water, seemingly not alerting anyone on the ship.

That evening, there is an awkward drunk conversation between Sharzad and RIaeki. Riaeki does her nightly meditation next to Sharzad’s bed and it is very cute!!!

Nalia and Afa wake to a knock on the door. There is a messenger from the family, say that this day is “all hands on deck.” Nalia goes to wake the others. They are super hungover. The messenger girl tells us the work is going to be at the bottom of the canyon. They groggily get ready and stuff food and coffee into their faces. They group discusses the kindness of potatoes.

When they reach the edge of the canyon they decide to take one of the industrial lifts down. Afa holds onto a rope in the corner to get a good view. Everyone else sits in the center of the platform like people with reasonable opinions of height. There is a glorious view of the canyon and the island with the university as we descend. When we reach the bottom we find we are taking a rowboat down canyon to one of the docks. Riaeki is very good at the boats.

Our destination is a magically constructed bay in a side eddy. In the bay there is a ship. It is the Edge of the World!!!!!
Sharzad draws a gun on Shelley (the messenger girl) and she becomes very afraid. We discuss our options and find out that Nexxaya came with the crew again this time. The crew looks very comfortable and safe here. We decide to send in Afa for the info while the rest of the group stays back and keeps watch. Afa saunters forward and gets the needed info out of Fenelessin with a wonderful lie. They are probably staying at a place called the Raven’s Wing We send Shelley home and plan our next move. Sharzad suggests getting rooms at the Raven’s Wing and scoping out the place.

The gang now needs to find a way back up to the surface. We make our way back upstream to where we took the crane down and grab another platform going up.

Sharzad goes to tell Lydia to head to Calafort now as shit is about to go down. Lydia assumes that we’re all gonna die but she goes along with it ’cause hey, seven gold.

The other group looks for the Raven’s Wing. It is on a bridge near the Skyward. Afa goes in but is not as successful at the lying this time and doesn’t get information. Then Nalia goes in to ask for a room, acting the distracted scholar. The lady at the desk is very rude, saying that “normally they don’t have rooms for tieflings.” Nalia says she’ll pay more and the lady palms most of the coin. She then invites Nalia to not use the dining facilities. The room is very nice with an alcove window hanging out over the canyon. Nalia casts Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum.

Sharzad catches up with the group and goes in after Nalia and manages to get past the mean desk person. Afa and Riaeki stake out the hotel and see Larr Xa and Nexxaya approaching! Sharzad overhears the conversation between those two and the mean desk lady. Afa and Riaeki follow, pretending to be Larr Xa’s crew and discover where is room is. The gang reconvenes and comes up with a plan. Nalia casts private sanctum around their room so they can’t hear us coming and the mean desk lady can’t hear the scuffle. We pick the lock and burst in, getting a surprise round. Afa tries to cast hold person but they BOTH save. Fuck them.

Well lads, we sure are fighting some ghosts. Clara, the little girl ghost, pulls some real spooky shit. Some of us get hexed with some dark energy and it’s bad news. Nalia basically gets scared stock still and AGES A MILLIONYEARSFROMFEAR. Clara seems to have something against Afa in particular. She hexes Afa and returns Afa to a memory of being home a long time ago. A snotty blonde girl spits on Afa, who has been pushed to the ground, and says that she can’t believe her parents can’t see her (Afa) for what she is. Afa feels hatred. Another memory begins, where people are looking down and away from Afa as she walks through town back toward home. At once she sees the blonde girl’s parents talking with her own— both are crying, but the girl’s mother is yelling and saying Afa’s parents need to do something about “that thing” or that they will— she accuses Afa of killing her daughter. That night, Afa packs up her few things and goes to a place in the forest that she knows is a portal to the fae. She sees a familiar face.

Back in the current timeline, Sharzad and Riaeki try to comfort Afa, who is paralyzed while she experiences the vision. Suddenly, Afa expels the possession Clara had put on her. She casts Phantasmal Force, trying to use her memory of Ivy against Clara. When Clara laughs at her for this, Afa compares Clare to Ivy, saying they both hurt people. Nalia finally overcomes the hex and after asking Afa if she needs help, shoots fire bolt.

In the aftermath, everyone is pretty shocked. Riaeki hugs Afa. Sharzad realizes Nalia has aged and tells her. Though shocked, Nalia decides she’ll have to find a way to remove it.

Meanwhile, Afa confronts Robin. She says she never killed Ivy and he made her parents cry, and now they have no one. Robin counters that Afa killed her twin. Afa says she never met her twin and Robin says she killed her in the cradle. He clearly believes she is a changeling. We all really hate this guy. As Afa talks more about how horrible Ivy was to her, and how miserable her parents must be now (which Robin confirms), Robin begins to see that he and the village may have been terribly wrong. Though he apologizes tbh we still don’t like him much and he doesn’t seem 100% convinced even so.

The gang does a search through the rest of the rooms and finds a big pile of skeletons that were clearly from children. It’s a bad vibe….

Riaeki asks Nalia if she knows what’s going on with her whole thing. Afa mentions that she knows it would take a powerful cleric to reverse a lingering effect of a curse. Riaeki asks Robin if there is a temple of healing in the city. He does, and Riaeki says he should come with them as well, as insurance.

At the temple of Elu, they seek help and pay 200 gold for a greater restoration to be performed on Nalia. She feels great!

Afterwards, Riaeki goes to the temple of Rashul to get some answers, which nonetheless remain elusive. Sharzad talks with Robin who is similarly intractable. Afa and Nalia hug and then go look for some special potatoes. Afa says she’d like to visit her parents when they’re done here.

The gang discuss what to do next and the possible dangers about continuing with the Family. Then they decide (naturally) to go see another show. After Sharzad spends some time talking confusingly with a man advertising a racy dancehall show, the gang decides to go see a morality play that Afa is familiar with. Sharzad and Riaeki get into a big conversation about the show. Nalia notices Sharzad is wearing Riaeki’s ring and tells Afa. After whispering about it for a while, Afa hops down and tries to sleight of hands Riaeki and Sharzad’s hands.

The group eventually agrees to go back to the cabaret place even though Sharzad says it doesn’t make sense because there isn’t a “story”. Afa has a good time watching all her friends be very uncomfortable. After a lot of embarrassment, they head over to ”the vegetable play.” Sharzad and Riaeki get in a dancing contest. They have a conversation about how they feel and why Riaeki gave Sharzad the ring. THENTHEYKISS!!!!!!!

Last time: We hold a contest to see who wins the ring of jumping, Riaeki does some Stunts, we get dolled up to go out to the club, go to the club, Sharzad accidentally seduces someone who works for the family, gets offered a job, Sharzad attempts to do some mobwork, gets interrupted by a kiss (rude), apprehends the drug addict friend, covers their debt to get a job, offers the drug addict friend a job, Afa and Nalia ABANDON US, and Sharzad and Riaeki have a very non-standard Declaration, resulting in Riaeki kissing Sharzad, and Riaeki running out the door.

We pick up with Nalia and Afa, with Nalia eavesdropping. They gossip- Afa’s noticed that Sharzad’s ‘sparkly-eyed’, but is surprised that Riaeki kissed first. Afa composes a strange, farcical love song story of the events that is Very Much For Everyone Here. After that… bawwdy tale, Afa tells the story of her first kiss with her girlfriend, which involved jumping out of a tree to overcome height differences.

Sharzad, stunned, waits a few moments to go after Riaeki- but decides better halfways across the square and heads back into the tavern, playing knives to get out some emotion. And Riaeki is running.

The city around Riaeki, as she runs, is Calm, Completely Still, and Quiet. She runs and runs, through the entertainment district, past the huge elevators, until finally reaching a strange, high-arched bridge heading into the sky-ward. Finally, she ascends to the Statue, and she gets in it. She looks up at the statue and asks, “Is this allowed? Am I allowed this?” There’s no response. “I didn’t expect an answer, but you seem to have an opinion on everything I do, so I thought you’d have rules. But. If you won’t come down and talk to me about it, then I’ll do what I want.” Suddenly, she notices someone. A young woman, in her late teens, perhaps a half-elf, perhaps an aasimar? Her skin is silver, her skin a warm brown. She’s perching crosslegged on the fountain, and says, “Hi!”

They discuss the stormfather- her Uncle asked her to check in on Riaeki, but didn’t give lots of details- and after veering into plot-relevant material, they turn back to the issue at hand: whether or not Riaeki is allowed to have her own problems. She mentions that she loved someone once- the High Elf depicted in the statue. She says that Riaeki is allowed to liver her own life, and reassures Riaeki that she’s not going to be turned to dust when her job is done. They discuss being undead vs. Alive Again, the angel clarifies that Riaeki is the latter. Riaeki asks a personal question: “If Iroth had come for him, and you couldn’t do anything about it, how could you keep going?” She responds, “It’s hard to remember how limited you feel. It was a long time ago- I’m not sure. I think I would’ve become worse than I was if that had happened.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“He became worse than he was after I left.”
“That’s the other thing that I was afraid of.”
“He always had that in him.”
Riaeki says that she doesn’t know how the find grace, and she doesn’t know what it is to look for it in herself. But she finds it the person who fights next to her- in the thing that happens when they’re together. The angel clarifies that divinity is inside all of us, and that’s how the gods were made. The angel lives, and Riaeki realizes it’s dawn (and Riaeki misty steps in response), and heads back to the tavern, arriving just as the dawn ccomes to full swing.

Sharzad had stayed up the whole night playing knives, and was asleep draped over a chain. Riaeki slips the ring of jumping on her finger. Sharzad wakes up though, seeing Riaeki for a second before she dissappears through misty step. Sharzad puts away the knives, and goes to sleep, stopping for a second upon realizing that Riaeki was inside.

The next morning, Afa, Nalia, and Riaeki get breakfast, while Selene and Sharzad take food, discuss northern dating traditions, and mercenary terms. They return and decided on how to deal with the mob, and choose mob names.

They head to the mob, are asked to give over their items. Afa keeps her rod, Riaeki keeps her sword, and Nalia’s staff. They enter. Sharzad messes up Afa’s name, calling her Nelly Hamara, and nalia on the spot chooses the name chaos, and leads the group to meet the Board. Inside, we see a halfling with blonde hair- who Afa recognizes. Afa introduces herself, the halfling doesn’t react much, and the man Sharzad met last night introduces himself as Khataar. They lay down the ground rules: cross them, we die, if we join up permanent-like, we get more cash. He offers 100 gold each for the job of clearing out this haunted house. We discuss terms, and head out. And as we leave, Robin the halfling follows us. Riaeki confronts Robin, and they talk- he knows who Afa is. He explains that Afa is Fae-folk, and that means she has no soul. We… disagree. Riaeki proposes we kill him, bu Afa disagrees.

Robin leads us to the Haunted House (taking a route over some very precarious bridges (rude)).It’s a single long building, two stories high. It’s… rough down here. People are on edge of death all around us. We approach a woman sitting on the stoop: “So you want to clear this place out again?” Robin: “Yep.” Sharzad goes to fix the ball for some kids. The woman asks why Sharzad did what she did, and she lies, badly, before Afa makes her tell the truth. Rila (the woman) explains that Things tend to move in when buildings get abandoned. The Things like kids. Riaeki asks about how the monsters hunt, and when the kids get Taken. We ask some questions about the beast together, deciding to consecrate any Remains we find, and Afa asks Riaeki to sense what’s within the building. Robin takes a moment to insult Afa one last time before entering, and Sharzad protests. Robin explains: he hates Afa because he believes she’s a child killer, and Riaeki lies about also killing children. Sharzad notices that Riaeki is lying, and Robin is not. We head inside, Robin leading. We head up to the second floor- and nearby, on the wall, is a small dark handprint. Bad.

We discuss tactics- perhaps Afa could scream like a child, amplified by prestidigitation? Riaeki wants not to fight in the hallway- she opens up a door, and we hear the sound of a laughing child. We Worry, but also some discussion of spirits, we enter the room. Nalia sees a face in the wall. We discuss consecrations. Sharzad hears a voice in the hall, and Riaeki sees a door open in the hall, with a childlike figure peeking out of it, before ducking back away. We discuss, and Sharzad tries to feel the Spirits within the place.
The spirit appears, and demands we entertain her. Riaeki attempts to Turn her with Divinity, but it doesn’t work. Afa sings, and Nalia makes dancing lights. Sharzad continues to meditate, while Riaeki reads the creatures’ mind. It’s old, and playful, and very dead. She dives deeper- it’s so old, it’s forgotten so many thing. Sharzad consecrates her weapon, and fires upon the creature.

PREVIOUSLY, ON LOST: sidonie named my sister after her cat and now pippin voice all is memes

we head to a tea shop, that is run by a high elf (not a tea elf). she knows a lot about exotic teas, and riaeki has an involved conversation with her about her rare teas and orders a jasmine tea, which sharzad joins her in. afa orders something herbal, and nalia something warm and spicy. sharzad, having never had tea before, is basically drinking hot flower water, and thinks it’s weird.

the gang discusses the ring of jumping. sharzad thinks it could help her get the high ground. afa and nalia aren’t particularly interested, and afa tries to steal sharzad’s cake— sharzad notices, but lets afa do it. riaeki suggests a contest, but maybe that they shouldn’t have it in the shop, and maybe it would be fun to take bets? sharzad suggests afa be our hype person. we head to the entertainment district to become entertainment.

afa, who finds this ridiculous, attemps to hype up this competition, which is ridiculous. riaeki is stronger, and used to do ‘sailor movements’, while sharzad is more nimble. a city guardsman calls sharzad a ‘goblin’, and riaeki punches him in the face. he looks like he might fight her, but his partner, a halfling woman, thinks riaeki could probably take him. sharzad thanks her, in a way that seems regretful and ashamed— and then goes to hype herself up.

‘friends! countrymen! people i know!’

the first jump is the standing long jump— riaeki rolls badly, and still goes about 30 feet. sharzad rolls better— she goes about 45 feet. the crowd is abuzz, and the two of them top gun high five.

next is the running long jump— sharzad jumps okay, but does a wild acrobatic handstand and wins over the crowd. riaeki beasts it, and goes much farther.

lastly— the high jump. riaeki bounds off the ground, but does not nail the landing, and hits flat on her back.. sharzad doesn’t do as well— she has to pull herself over, but lands much better— though it doesn’t matter, as riaeki’s won! (ed: WOOOPWOOP). she collects her prize and asks sharzad whether she’s actually as scary as the bookie seems to think. (she’s not as scary as afa.)

we gonna head to a NIGHTCLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUB (we’re on a PAYROLL)

in preparation , sharzad drinks a shakshuka, unaware that this is not a beverage, then helps afa with her hair. nalia straightens her robe, and wrings her hands nervously. sharzad, always fashion forward, constructs a hairpiece out of braids and wire, and FINALLYMENDS NALIA’S ROBES, DANG. afa and sharzad go dress shopping and bring riaeki and nalia along. sharzad buys a GOWN, afa finds a shiny dress that was probably supposed to be a top for someone bigger, and nalia finds nice robes. riaeki isn’t enthused about taking off her armor in a mafia clubhouse, but sharzad assures her she looks fine.

we enter the SINKHOLE, wearing just truly ridiculous clothing. strobelights greet us as we descend down the stairs, and we walk through an archway onto THEDANCEFLOOR. basically. most of this place is dance floor, and it’s pretty big. the ceiling, having been carved by said sinkhole, is vast, and we can still see the dirt and rocks in the walls. there’s second floor balcony, which seems possibly more lowkey, or vip. the clientele is multiracial, and dancing, and the vibe is pretty cool.

afa tries to look for a cute person to flirt with, and straightforwardly walks up to what is clearly (to other people) a couple, or two people about to be a couple. sharzad doesn’t understand why no one is dancing in formation, and nalia seems intimidated, so riaeki drags them onto the dance floor. sharzad is a fuckin bomb ass dancer, and riaeki can move despite only knowing sailor’s jigs. a rough looking human woman asks sharzad to dance, and whisks her away. they discuss mercenary possibilites— sharzad inquires after ‘finding people, dead or alive’-type-work. nalia sees that other things are going on here— transactions, of a buisness nature or a commercial nature, furtive discussions, your normal black market jazz.

the woman orders sharzad a whiskey, and inquires after her resume, basically. sharzad… badly explains the history of the lightheart company. “how much do you know about the ruffians of mistfall?” “they’re… powerful?” the woman offers to take sharzad to someone who can tell her more, and asks her name…. which sharzad gives fully. come on sharzad. the woman, apparently, is selene.

riaeki, afa, and nalia follow as selene leads sharzad off. they head up a staircase into a private, quieter area. (sharzad is not more appropriately dressed for this environment.) she brings sharzad to an older mafia man (ed: hot), who doesn’t think that sharzad is up to the task, or at least that selene is thinking with the wrong body parts. the man points into the crowd at a green dragonborn woman, saying if sharzad can ‘catch’ her and collect from her. and sharzad /vaults/ over the balcony into the crowd, and tries to dance with the woman, who is INTO IT. riaeki casts detect thoughts on her, and she calls sharzad a butterface, which is ruuuude. sharzad asks if she wants to get out of the club— “lemme go talk to my dealer, and then let’s go!”. riaeki moves detect thoughts over to sharzad, who is feeling a ton of guilt and panic— riaeki attempts to save her with a kiss and a ‘hey babe, where you going?’

this confuses sharzad.

and the dragonborn, who in a bit of a turn of events, invites riaeki to come with them. baffled, they go out into the back, where the dragonborn, who calls herself lydia, offers them some good good drugs— sharzad, bamboozled, tries to take it, but riaeki knocks the drugs out of her hand. sharzad, pulling her gun, tells lydia that she’s collecting for the family. riaeki covers her mouth, but it doesn’t seem to be completely necessary, given how whacked out she is. they tie her up, and search her, and ask her what she owes— 20 gold, far more than she has on her (which includes some rogue-y tools). sharzad offers to pay her debt for her, and riaeki mentions that they could use the talents of someone who knows thievery. by this point, nalia and afa have joined them., and riaeki suggests that sharzad take afa to ensure the debt is settled and make contact with the family, while she and nalia take lydia home with them.
*lydia, super mellowed out fantasy shrooms, chats with nalia and riaeki about theoretically joining their mercenary band— they let a tiefling join up, so they seem pretty cool. riaeki misinterprets and thinks lydia is insulting nalia, but she’s talking about lived experience as a chromatic dragonborn, and thinks its rich to be called out by a high elf. nalia assures her their company isn’t like that.

afa and sharzad go to mend fences with the MOB. sharzad tries to tell the mob guy that she attacked lydia, while afa corrects that she cast a spell on her. this seems to convince him, especially when they hand over the twenty gold. selene seems impressed, and gives sharzad a kiss on the cheek as they leave. sharzad exists in a world of bafflement. theoretically we now have an in with the mafia, but no one is focused on that.

sharzad and afa get back to the inn, where riaeki and nalia have waited to see them home. sharzad is visibly distressed, and riaeki asks what’s up, which prompts nalia to drag afa away from the pair on pretense of potatoes.

riaeki asks sharzad not to throw herself into danger without the party for backup, and sharzad apologizes— riaeki responds that she knows sharzad is capable but also worries about the safety of her friends. but that’s clearly not what’s bothering sharzad. riaeki then apologizes, for getting in the way of sharzad’s fun— she panicked, worrying that sharzad was in danger, and assuming she needed rescuing.

that was not the problem. the opposite was the problem.

what?

riaeki demands an explanation. sharzad’s answer is to kiss her on the cheek and run for (their shared) room, but riaeki stops her. there’s a long moment.

“if you don’t give me an answer, sharzad, i’m going to have to cast a spell on you.” “i don’t know if i can say it. maybe you should cast a spell.” so riaeki detects her thoughts. there’s awkwardness, and fear, but also… well. so she probes further.

sharzad thinks back— meeting the party for the first time and wanting so badly to impress them, explaining how guns work and this elf not understanding their power, diving into a volley of arrows, heartbreak and sadness over a bottle of strange wine. learning a secret, and being angry, and trying to fix things, and doing the opposite of that, and understanding suddenly what the problem was; taking that heartbreak into herself, knowing it. looking out into lights in the fog and protecting, uselessly, with a blanket. a kiss, and then a kiss over again, a kiss stretched out in an eternal moment. love.

riaeki comes out of the spell, stunned. she looks at sharzad, puts a hand on her shoulder. “please don’t take this the wrong way”. and she kisses her again. and she bolts from the inn.

Sharzad wants to talk with some other members of the gang, but they go to bed early. She then tries to talk to the bartender but that doesn’t go very well and she ends up drunkenly oversharing. She heads up to the room hoping to talk to Sharzad but Riaeki pretends to be meditating. Sharzad pokes her but Riaeki does not respond.

After Sharzad goes to sleep, Riaeki heads downstairs seeking out the aasimar Mirien.
Riaeki asks, “You’ve been lots of places, haven’t you? Can I ask you something?”
Riaeki draws her family crest and asks if Mirien recognizes it.
Mirien says, “I think I do. Its that merchant family, isn’t it? From Gephyra?”
Mirien says that they traveled with a caravan run by this family, but they can’t remember names or other details and it was a while ago. Mirien says of the woman who ran the caravan, “you look a lot like her.”
Riaeki thanks them and runs out of the room.

While Afa is asleep she has a mandolin lesson.

When Sharzad wakes up, Riaeki is still meditating and Sharzad notices that something is off. Also it was strange that she didn’t respond to being poked.

The breakfast is amazing food that reminds Sharzad of home.
Sharzad asks Riaeki if she’s all right since she was asleep all night and didn’t respond when Sharzad tried to wake her up. This still doesn’t add up.
Sharzad then asks about the boy that we helped earlier, as Riaeki was uncommonly generous and protective of him. Riaeki says that she panicked, and Sharzad wonders why.
Riaeki says that she can explain, but she can show her. Then she gives Sharzad her shield.
Sharzad attunes to it, and hesitantly casts detect thoughts.

In Riaeki’s mind there are vast oceans and deep canyons of regret, and sparks of friendship that cast some of the darkness away.

Sharzad returns the shield.

Mirien comes downstairs and approaches Riaeki, saying, “Hey i remembered the name you were looking for! Tiatha Valtaeris, but she went by Tia most of the time.”
The detect thoughts is still up when this conversation happens! Sharzad sense a confusing array of emotions, mostly fear.
Sharzad: “Riaeki, what was that? Who is Tiatha Valtaeris?”
Riaeki involuntarily crushes the mug that held her coffee.
Riaeki starts to explain. That is the name of her sister who murdered her! It all comes out over the morning coffee.

Riaeki then asks that we don’t talk about it and then go sell our stolen goods instead. We discuss future plans and see that we will eventually need to track the sister down, especially since Riaeki suspects she serves Yleth.

We go out searching for a fence. Sharzad tries to identify some potential targets. Riaeki uses her piratey-ness to seem a legit in-the-know criminal. Afa lies about their criminal connections.

We find an inventor who is interested in the precious metals and gems. She gets overexcited and offers 11,000g! Sharzad is confused that the party doesn’t haggle. Aren’t you supposed to haggle?

She pays us in a combination of ingots and coin. We now have a fuckton of money!
Sharzad offers her the jeweler’s kit, but it has Master Ynaris’s mark. Luckily, the shopkeeper thinks Ynaris is a dick and supports us. She gives back the kit and Afa burns off the mark.

The group heads off to the Skyward to spend their sweet sweet loot. They discuss the nature of spirits and Riaeki and Afa are a little weirded out by the ubiquity of spirits. They also discuss the nature of the gods and whether there are ultimate rules governing stuff and everyone is very confused.

We find a store with some enchanted items that looks sorta bland called the Mystic Emporium. Apparently they walked into a training session and there is a very awkward customer service interaction between one of the employees and Sharzad. At a certain point the proprietor steps in and introduces herself as Embris. She’s a dwarf with the elaborate traditional braids. She explains that this is a branch that might not have some of the more specialized magical items. She looks the party over and figures out that they are adventurers and starts looking for things that would be useful for them.

Riaeki haggles down the price of a ring of the ram and a dimension door cape. There is also for sale a Handy Haversack. Meanwhile Sharzad stands staring and poking at armor and not really getting anywhere.
We decide to buy the three items and the math to figure out how to pay for the stuff and the math is just really hard, guys. But we know we do have enough.

last time with the lads: having reached the second floor of master ynaris’s shop, we pause to recover some mf hits points…

Nalia finds a hollow book with a gem and mysterious seal inside, seeming to point even more to a connection to the pirate necklaces. Afa plays a song to cheer everyone up. Sharzad pulls a tooth. Riaeki cleans off some gunk. The gang makes sure to loot some books to sell, because books are for nerds and money is extremely good.

After narrowly avoiding a sword trap in the ascending stairs, Riaeki decides to use some of the mimic pieces to cover the sword holes in the wall. It takes some trial and error but the party eventually makes its way to the next door…which is suspiciously fancy and weirdly intricate. Afa manages to unlock it and Riaeki opens it.

Inside the room, the party sees a huge framed mirror on the opposite wall. There is a circle on the floor that Nalia and Afa investigate, and which Nalia recognizes as a summoning circle. Still looking at the mirror, Sharzad sees something reflected in it that is next to Afa. Eventually the image resolves into that of a tiefling-like figure who then speaks directly to Afa. In the course of conversation, it becomes clear that Ynaris has summoned and bound the demon to the mirror. The demon begins menacing Sharzad as she moves to loot the room. Nalia decides to try to disrupt the summoning circle while Afa and Sharzad distract the demon. However after a few minutes he notices what she’s doing and, enraged, says a word in Abyssal and Nalia is instantly stunned.

Afa recognizes what spell has been cast and begins to wail about Nalia to distract the demon. However she also fools Sharzad and Riaeki…She then asks what the demon wants and suggests the Queen might be willing to help him. Riaeki is starting to drag Nalia away and Afa whispers that Nalia is just stunned— not in true danger. However the demon overhears this and realizes has has been duped. Afa says she’s never performed for a demon before. She then contacts the Queen of Air and Darkness and asks if what he was saying was true and he is worth making a deal with. The Queen replies he is little more than a low level courtier. As this is happening, Nalia comes back into consciousness. Riaeki asks if she’s going to continue her circle and she does. With a few final strokes she finishes the circle and the demon is now bound to Nalia’s service.

After some conversation back and forth, the gang eventually agrees to rewrite the contract such that the demon (named Eltezu) is not to kill anyone who comes into this room except for Ynaris— who is to be killed if he returns. He is then to alert them to this.

With this done, the party decides to leave the tower. Afa surfs down the stairs on riaeki’s shield. Sharzad slides down but gets whacked on the head. Rip. Riaeki and Nalia walk down and they al leave with their loot in tow.

Unfortunately once they leave, a city guard patrol spots them and demands an explanation since they absoultely look like they just looted the entire store. Riaeki lies and says they are helping Master Ynaris. The city guard is NOT at all attuned to this and is like oh yeah for sure…but then she goes in to close the door and triggers one of the tripwires. The gang then has to help her when she gets a bunch of acid goo flung at her. She again believes the gang when they say the traps were set by Master Ynaris to keep people out while he’s moving (this is kind of true though) and she asks for the party’s name so she can give them a commendation for helping her. Afa, thinking quickly, says they are Lisbet, Sara (Riaeki), Maria (Nalia), and Lou (Sharzad). The gang then freakin books it outta there, leaving the rug with the gnome city guard, who Sharzad threw it at when she went to go help the other guard.

The party then look for some lodgings and enter an establishment called “The Laughing Witch”. They have dinner and talk amicably with the barkeep and a company of bards who are staying there. They then head back to the theatre to see The Folly of Steven and EXTREMELY enjoy it.